Felicia Hemans’s “The Switzer’s Wife” begins at home. The text’s most obvious purpose is to encourage a strong relationship between the domestic and the political or national, as the conflict inspired by the heroic wife ultimately results in the country of Switzerland becoming independent from tyranny, according to Hemans’s narrative. Hemans’s beginning commentary provides a brief synopsis and direct correlation between the heroic woman and the revolution that will begin. The quote by Maria Jane Jewsbury emphasizes a female external calm and an inward strength. The quote by Wilhelm Tell draws a direct link between war and the domestic sphere. If a man has a particular kind of wife, he can “fight for hearth and home with joy” (170). The poem then opens at the end of the day, the domestic time of day, after work is complete, the evening “Gathering a household with her quiet wings” (26). Children meeting their father appear in the very first few lines. Then the scene changes to the husband being sad enough to attract notice, not only from his wife, but also from his child; this is a close family. With echoes of Corinne’s marriage advice to Lucile, when the wife doesn’t receive explanation by non-verbal cues, she does not let the matter drop, but kindly pursues an explanation from her husband. The husband at first does not directly articulate the issue that causes him concern, but instead fearfully urges covert actions because the home’s “foes are near” (27). He then articulates the problem of possible oppression or imprisonment. After a moment of fear and shock, the brave wife recovers, stands “brightly forth” (27) into “sudden power” (27). What she takes into her hands is her child (not a sword or other arms) to her “holy breast” (27), clearly with divine imprimatur. Winnicott’s feminine model of creativity seems evident here. Using a nurturing creativity, she then creates language (again, not arms) that urges military action for men and prayer (divine, elevated, often improvisational, language) for women. The similarities with Corinne are notable: skill with language, feeling, imagination (the wife creates the plan the husband follows) and a legacy of freedom that will credit a woman with a hand in national independence. Next, in self-denial, she urges her husband to do what he needs to for his child’s freedom and the “sweet memory of our pleasant hearth may well give strength” (28). What she cannot bear is seeing her husband “subdued” (28). She then creates a plan to rally others. The husband admirably and heroically responds and rearticulates the connection and motivation in battle between action and the home. It finishes, not with a victorious masculine battle scene, but with the wife performing her motherly duties, singing a hymn to her child. The definite implication is that the link toward positive political movement, even a kind of social justice, can be achieved, is achieved, by female means. The solution happens through a female. Though other poems in the procession may refer to women who used material weapons, the very powerful weapons in this poem are the domain of the strong female. The home is a place of inspiration and motivation, the woman the channel for the heroic attitudes from there. I myself couldn’t help hearing the minister at the end of the film Mrs. Miniver saying that this “…is not only a war of soldiers in uniform….and it must be fought….in the factories, on the farms, and in the homes…” http://www.reelclassics.com/Movies/Miniver/miniver-dialog3.htm
Felicia Hemans’s “The Switzer’s Wife” begins at home. The text’s most obvious purpose is to encourage a strong relationship between the domestic and the political or national, as the conflict inspired by the heroic wife ultimately results in the country of Switzerland becoming independent from tyranny, according to Hemans’s narrative.
Hemans’s beginning commentary provides a brief synopsis and direct correlation between the heroic woman and the revolution that will begin. The quote by Maria Jane Jewsbury emphasizes a female external calm and an inward strength. The quote by Wilhelm Tell draws a direct link between war and the domestic sphere. If a man has a particular kind of wife, he can “fight for hearth and home with joy” (170).
The poem then opens at the end of the day, the domestic time of day, after work is complete, the evening “Gathering a household with her quiet wings” (26). Children meeting their father appear in the very first few lines. Then the scene changes to the husband being sad enough to attract notice, not only from his wife, but also from his child; this is a close family. With echoes of Corinne’s marriage advice to Lucile, when the wife doesn’t receive explanation by non-verbal cues, she does not let the matter drop, but kindly pursues an explanation from her husband. The husband at first does not directly articulate the issue that causes him concern, but instead fearfully urges covert actions because the home’s “foes are near” (27). He then articulates the problem of possible oppression or imprisonment. After a moment of fear and shock, the brave wife recovers, stands “brightly forth” (27) into “sudden power” (27). What she takes into her hands is her child (not a sword or other arms) to her “holy breast” (27), clearly with divine imprimatur. Winnicott’s feminine model of creativity seems evident here. Using a nurturing creativity, she then creates language (again, not arms) that urges military action for men and prayer (divine, elevated, often improvisational, language) for women. The similarities with Corinne are notable: skill with language, feeling, imagination (the wife creates the plan the husband follows) and a legacy of freedom that will credit a woman with a hand in national independence.
Next, in self-denial, she urges her husband to do what he needs to for his child’s freedom and the “sweet memory of our pleasant hearth may well give strength” (28). What she cannot bear is seeing her husband “subdued” (28). She then creates a plan to rally others. The husband admirably and heroically responds and rearticulates the connection and motivation in battle between action and the home. It finishes, not with a victorious masculine battle scene, but with the wife performing her motherly duties, singing a hymn to her child. The definite implication is that the link toward positive political movement, even a kind of social justice, can be achieved, is achieved, by female means. The solution happens through a female.
Though other poems in the procession may refer to women who used material weapons, the very powerful weapons in this poem are the domain of the strong female. The home is a place of inspiration and motivation, the woman the channel for the heroic attitudes from there. I myself couldn’t help hearing the minister at the end of the film Mrs. Miniver saying that this “…is not only a war of soldiers in uniform….and it must be fought….in the factories, on the farms, and in the homes…”
http://www.reelclassics.com/Movies/Miniver/miniver-dialog3.htm